Blog by Amy

The holiday season is laced with minefields for grieving people, especially if they are facing the first holiday season without  loved one. Homes get decorated with sentimental ornaments, candles, and trimmings. Songs carry unbidden emotions. There are countless gatherings of friends and family...

in the past, the holiday season was a time of warmth, surprises, celebration, and hugs. Yet for grieving people, these days are cold and bleak. Hearing holiday songs, reading the ads, and walking into festively decorated stores only serves to rub the scab raw and thrusts the cold spear deeper into b...

When we talk about medical decision-making, especially in the later stages of life, there is a huge disconnect in our society between attitudes and implementation.

In fact, according to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, only 26% of Americans have living wills or advance directives, even th...

Imagine a scenario: In the course of a regularly scheduled meeting, you notice that your normally astute and proper client has grown visibly thinner and isn’t dressed to the usual standard. You also observe disturbing memory lapses and mental mistakes, including trouble understanding the concepts yo...

Have you ever seriously worried about having to live on the streets? Interestingly, that is one of the most common fears of a widow, even if she has more money than she’s ever had due to insurance proceeds. She is afraid it will somehow disappear and she will become a bag lady. In some cases, her si...

I didn’t know what to expect the first time I attended. After John died, I hated the box marked “widow” and the very name made people around me uncomfortable. Yet here I was going to a weekend event called Camp Widow.®

At the opening session, I sat with over 300 other widowed people. The diversity am...

The president and CEO of a prominent asset management firm recently proposed that although sex was a taboo subject for a long time, the last remaining taboo in our society is money.  I’d like to take issue with that assertion.

It does seem that sex is no longer taboo, at least in the public aren...

When a client or colleague receives  serious diagnosis or needs to undergo surgery, chemotherapy, or other treatments, people often rally around with support. They offer to bring food, provide rides to doctor’s appointments, watch the kids, etc. While grateful for all the offers, most people ar...